‘Community’ and the Re‐Making of 1970s Belfast

Abstract

This article explores the fraught, shifting terrain of'community’ as lived out in 1970s Belfast. Applying Raymond Williams’ concept of ‘structures of feeling,’ it explores ‘community’ consciousness that is rooted in affection, sensation, and knowledge. It then considers campaigns against redevelopment in west Belfast at this time, and the ways they were inspired and limited by the contemporary experience of ‘community.’ Based on fieldwork, oral histories, and archival resources, the discussion proposes that political action in divided societies is not reducible to sectarian geography. Rather, it advocates analysing the historically specific contours ofnuanced emotional allegiances and spatial associations that motivate and limit political action, and attention to how social content and place figure in conceptions of collectivity.

Keywords:

• Violence
• poverty
• urban redevelopment
• Northern Ireland

Acknowledgments

Funding for fieldwork was generously provided by the Wenner‐Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the United States Institute of Peace. I am deeply grateful to the community development workers who shared their time with me over the course of the research. Thanks also to Ethnos anonymous reviewers and editors for their thoughtful comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. In the anthropological literature on Northern Ireland, Aretxaga (1997:53, 87) makes brief reference to Williams' concept as a possible way to understand women republican prisoners' political consciousness in the 1970s.

2. Community development workers may be seen as a self‐selected group that has, as they often put it, ‘a strong feeling for the community’ (both in terms of affect for and knowledge of their neighbourhoods). Alternatively, their experiences and understandings may be seen as a more public expression of what many people feel, given that development work depends on legitimacy among local residents.

3. Following Thompson (1991[1963]), I use the term ‘working‐class’ in the sense of an historical relationship ‐ not only to a means of production, but also among persons. Class is a relationship that is social and cultural as well as economic. Furthermore, I use it in the sense of relationships that the subjects of this document understand to persist in their own lives. As Thompson writes, ‘Class is defined by men as they live their own history, and in the end, this is its only definition’ (1991:10).

4. This paper, however, relies heavily upon the oral histories. When possible, I consulted contemporaneous newspaper accounts, or memoirs, for verification; for example, the organized swapping of houses in the Upper Springfield was confirmed by de Baróid (1989). Government documents (such as those produced by the shortlived Community Relations Commission) also added context to these accounts. Furthermore, I found Cathrine Degnen's (2005) concept of ‘memory talk’ as a useful way of understanding how oral histories, even when varying between speakers, are collective accounts, meaningful and useful for understanding how people understand their own histories, despite the obvious pitfalls of literalism. Therefore, I used both a strategy of verification, and an orientation toward local meanings and motivations to analyse and interpret these accounts.

5. E.P. Thompson has written that a primary historiographic task is to distinguish continuing traditions from changing contexts and forces. He notes that, ‘Too often, since every account must start somewhere, we see only the things which are new’ (1991:27).

6. Williams, of course, was concerned with ‘defining forms and conventions in art and literature as inalienable elements of a social material process’ (1997:133). However, heavily influenced by Gramsci, his discussions of that ‘social material process’ provide useful tools for analysing other aspects of cultural life.

7. Although Williams himself did not apply this theoretical concept to ‘community,’ he was no stranger to the experience and difficulties of ‘community’ (cf. Williams 2003[1977]). In essays and reviews from the 1970s until his death, Williams considered the actually existing ‘communities’ of his native Wales, and their place in conceptions of nation and society (Williams 2003[1977][1985]).

8. Valuations of past relationships in memories may be categorized as mere ‘nostalgia.’ In the Northern Irish context, John Darby (1986) has argued a nostalgia about voluntary mixing among Catholics and Protestants is more common among those who were displaced in the early days of conflict. Stuart Tannock (1995) has argued that nostalgia itself is a structure of feeling, arising from the dislocations of modernity, and that, contrary to negative valuations, has productive power for people trying to create progressive futures. Similarly, Jon Mitchell (1998) has utilized Herzfeld's (1997) idea of ‘structural nostalgia’ to explore how nostalgia is used to produce legitimacy for claims against the state. Re‐evaluations of 'nostalgia’ as neither an inaccurate representation of the past nor as a force for conservatism are welcome. However, I consider nostalgia as only one element of the structure of feeling called ‘community.’

9. This report was prepared by John Darby and Geoffrey Morris. In its original edition, the NICRC is the corporate author, and I use librarians’ bibliographic convention to refer to the document.

10. Fenian is a derogatory term for Catholics, referring back to a nineteenth‐century nationalist movement.

11. This was during spring 1972, when according to the NICRC report (1974:45–47), ‘Lenadoon became the focal point of a political power struggle between the UDA and IRA’ (1974:45).

12. As in any ‘conspiracy,’ all parties needn't share the same motives, only desire the same outcome. Increased legitimacy for paramilitaries or political parties that supported redevelopment activism was a side effect of their engagement. The genesis and shaping of these campaigns were not driven by their instrumental imperatives; indeed, again, the support of those seeking political legitimacy is evidence of the affective power of ‘community’: ‘the proliferation of hollow calls for community… reaffirms… the appeal of a collective connection that is not merely or even primarily instrumental’ (Amit & Rapport 2002:13).

13. Articles describing Shankill activists' belief in a conspiracy of systematic depopulation appeared in the Sunday News 6 March 1977:3 and 4 December 1977:7, Irish Times 30 September 1978:5, and notably an article endorsing this explanation in Fortnight December 1977, authored by Jonathan Stephenson of the Northern Ireland Council of Social Services. See also Brett 1986:78.

14. The contemporary ‘community sector’ or ‘community development sector’ is a significant source of employment in Northern Ireland. Estimates of its size range from 3.99 per cent (Acheson, Harvey, & Williamson 2005) to 4.5 per cent of the workforce (NICVA 2002).